About ECHO

In 2001, the Ethnicity, Culture and Health Outcomes program was envisioned as a unit that would foster mutually beneficial research partnerships and collaborations, educate a culturally competent workforce, and engage North Carolina communities by bringing together campus resources and expertise.

Mission

The mission of ECHO is to improve the health of North Carolina communities by eliminating racial and ethnic health disparities through multidisciplinary and culturally sensitive research, education and training. ECHO accomplishes this mission through:

“Of all the forms of inequality, injustice in health care is the most shocking and inhumane.”

Martin Luther King Jr.

Educating and training scholars to address disparities in research or practice;

Fostering mutually beneficial community-academic partnerships and research collaborations; and

Developing resources and innovative initiatives

Vision

ECHO envisions a North Carolina, and a world, in which health differences are a result of human variation–not ethnic, racial, cultural or socioeconomic disparities.